View full sizeAP Photo/Don RyanConvicted killer Gary Haugen leaves Marion County courthouse after a hearing in Salem. Haugen must undergo a competency hearing before an execution date can be set.

The state Supreme Court on Monday denied a request by the former lawyers for death-row inmate Gary Haugen to be reinstated, and a new attorney has been named to represent the twice-convicted murderer.

Gregory Scholl, an attorney who works for Metropolitan Public Defenders in Washington County, will take over representation for the 49-year-old inmate who has asked to waive his legal appeals and be executed.

A Marion County Circuit judge last Thursday had granted Haugen's request to replace his attorneys, Andy Simrin and W. Keith Goody, finding that the relationship between them was "irretrievably broken." Although Simrin said at the time that he would not make any more filings in the case, he and Goody then submitted a request asking the high court to intervene and reinstate them.

Goody, by email, said that the court's decision "is a considerable relief" and that "honestly, the heavy weight of responsibility in the case had weighed on him and Simrin.

The decision ends months of sparring between Haugen and his lawyers. Haugen has sharply criticized them for pursuing "an agenda" in trying to prevent his execution and bid to "die with dignity." Haugen has said he is protesting the legal system, which he argues unfairly sentences convicts like himself to death while allowing others, such as Ward Weaver, who killed two of his daughter's friends among other crimes, to life in prison.

But Simrin and Goody have argued that they were only pursuing their legal obligations to represent someone they believe is not mentally competent. They pointed to an evaluation by a Portland neuropsychologist who concluded Haugen is delusional and argued that a Marion County Circuit judge overseeing Haugen's case should have conducted a full competency hearing before scheduling an Aug. 16 execution.

The Oregon Supreme Court agreed with them and last month ordered Marion County Circuit Judge Joseph Guimond to cancel the execution and hold a competency hearing for him. A status conference is scheduled for Thursday.

Haugen's new attorney, Scholl, is the second substitute to take over for Simrin and Goody. Another attorney, Oregon City Benjamin Kim, had been named on Friday as a replacement. But he quickly asked to be dismissed, saying he "completely misunderstood" the status of the case, and hadn't realized that Haugen had already been convicted, sentenced to death and was volunteering for execution.

Haugen was sentenced to death in 2007 for the murder of another inmate, David Polin, at the Oregon State Penitentiary in 2003. He had already been serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for the 1981 murder of Mary Archer, the mother of his former girlfriend. -- Helen Jung